[Assam] Dhemaji floods (The Assam Tribune,28.07.2007)

[Buljit Buragohain]

EDITORIAL 

    
---------------------------------
  
  MESSAGE FOR TODAY
Success in the long run is a measure of one’s ability to turn tasks into adventures.
— JOAN BJORKSTEN

Dhemaji floods
  Dhemaji district has been ravaged by floods yet again following breaches on the embankments and this also highlighted the failure of the Central and State Governments to take up permanent measures to deal with the problems of floods and erosion. Dhemaji has been cut off from the rest of the State since July 12 as the National Highway 52 has been snapped at several places and though the Army constructed a bailey bridge on an alternative PWD road, that too was overtopped, thereby totally snapping road communication to the district. Of course, Dhemaji is not the only district to be affected by the fury of floods as other upper Assam districts are also hit and the possibility of the lower Assam districts being affected in the days to come cannot be ruled out. What is more disturbing is that over the years, the State and Central Governments totally failed to take permanent measures to deal with the problem and almost every year, the people of Assam have to bear the brunt of
 the fury of floods. Of course, it is beyond the financial means of the State Government to take up measures for permanent solution to the problems of floods and erosion and the Central government has also not been able to take positive steps in this regard. Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh assured a delegation of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) in a meeting to review the implementation of the Assam Accord in May, 2005 that the Centre would consider floods in Assam as a national problem, but only declaration would not provide any kind of succor to the people of the State. Immediately after assuming office as the Prime Minister, Dr Singh, who is a representative of Assam in the Rajya Sabha, constituted a task force to study the problem of floods and to suggest measures to deal with the problem. But the recommendations of the task force are yet to be implemented. The Prime Minister also made an announcement that a North East Water Resources Authority would be
 constituted, but that also has not been done. It is reported that the proposed authority could not be constituted because of opposition from the Government of Arunachal Pradesh and if that is the case, the Central Government should try to persuade the Government of the State to accept the proposal for constitution of the Authority by removing the misgivings through dialogues.
(The Assam Tribune,28.07.2007)  
   



       
---------------------------------
 Download prohibited? No problem. CHAT from any browser, without download.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.assamnet.org/pipermail/assam-assamnet.org/attachments/20070728/4df9d9ca/attachment.htm>